Belle Wong: writer, reader, creativity junkie

Tag Archives: what I’m working on

Photo of the week: It was tough getting out of bed this morning, as I had this little guy snuggled up under my arm. He’s such a naughty cat when he’s awake, but when he’s sleeping, he’s an angel.

Time: 4:57

Feeling: Motivated! It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way. It’s a nice feeling!

Reading: I’m about a quarter of the way through Pet Sematary for the readalong, but I’m trying not to read it at night, so I’ve also been dipping into some lighter fare as well. Last night I made myself put Pet Sematary down, and read An Age of License by Lucy Knisley.

I enjoyed it – it was as good a read as Relish, and better than French Milk, which I’ve liked the least out of her books so far.

I’m also back into Norwegian by Night, by Derek Miller, which I’d put down last month after three chapters and never got around to picking up again until now. This was through no fault of the book itself, which has been very good so far – and in fact, it’s been in the back of my mind all this time. But I’m reading it in ebook format, and I find I tend to do this with ebooks (and audiobooks, too) – put them down and take a while to get back to them. Often it’s because a number of print books have come into my life via the library, and print books are just so, well, physical, you know? And easier to pick up because they’re lying on your sofa or your table, with their bright enticing covers.

So far I’ve listened to “The Crooked Man”, by Michael Connelly (this one is a Harry Bosch story), “The Curious Affair of the Italian Art Dealer” by Sara Paretsky and “The Memoirs of Silver Blaze” by Michael Sims (in which the narrator is a horse).

Writing: I printed out the first draft of my children’s novel, Waverley and will be sitting down to work on revisions tonight. I’ve also started getting feedback and comments from my writing pals who’ve agreed to be alpha readers of the short story I wrote last week, so with any luck, I’ll have the final draft ready next week.

The writing is why I’ve been feeling so motivated. I promised myself I’d start submitting my work this year, but of course, you can’t submit when you don’t have anything written to submit, right? Going into this year I had a flash story that I think is very good and a couple of short stories I don’t think are very good, so really nothing much to submit. I was very happy I managed to write another short story last week which might actually be good enough to send out.

Working: I have a couple of client blog post deadlines at the end of this week, but nothing else so far. And wouldn’t you know it – after complaining for all of January and most of February about how I was too busy and how I hated having all those deadlines, now I’m doing the “freelance reversal” and getting a little worried because I don’t have more deadlines! (I simply can’t win … )

Looking forward to: Finally buckling down and starting on the revisions to Waverley. I’ve never gotten to this stage before (because prior to now I’ve finished so few things), and I find I’m both looking forward to the revisions and feeling kind of nervous about doing them, too.

The rest of today: I’ve got to run and take Dylan to dance. When I get back I’ve got some chapters I want to finish critiquing for my writing buddy and the revisions to get to. But I’m hoping to slip in a few chapters of Norwegian by Night before I go to bed, too!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Adriane Giberson invited me to participate in a blog tour of creators (writers, artists and poets). I was a little hesitant at first. I’ve been busy with work and all the other must-do’s of life, and my creativity has really taken a backseat lately. But I’ve just finished a couple of big deadlines (like indexing an 1100 page AND a 1500 page book back to back – ouch!) and what better way to help myself dive back into more creative work than blogging about it, right?

What am I working on?

The big project on my desk right now is an urban fantasy with the working title “Sweetness and Dank” (the names of two of my main characters – very creative of me, I know). I’ve already written a chunk of this novel by hand in a Moleskine, and started transcribing it (and rewriting as I went) into Scrivener last week.

I’d started a writing challenge recently – 15 minutes of writing a day, which you’d think would be immensely do-able – so this seemed like the perfect thing for me to tackle. Unfortunately, the deadlines got to me, so my plan is to start anew on my writing challenge today. I have high hopes. We shall see.

I also want to start the edits on “Waverley”, which I’d completed for Nanowrimo a couple of years ago. There are massive changes that need to be made, because I kind of wrote two books in one, and need to separate out the story that I’m really trying to tell from the story that belongs in a book of its own. But look what I recently picked up from the library!

That’s right: Blueprint Your Bestseller, by Stuart Horwitz, which promises to help me “organize and revise any manuscript with the book architecture method”. I don’t know if it will help, but I do have a completed, in-need-of-revision children’s fantasy in “Waverley” and I’ve got really high hopes for this book architecture method, whatever it might turn out to be.

In the artsy department, after working this past year on several doodle quotes, I’ve been really wanting to practice my lettering. I recently had a look at Creative Lettering, by Jenny Doh, and was just so inspired! I’m not going for a calligraphic look – what I want is to develop a whimsical, slightly quirky, not-quite straight lettering style (I’ve already got the not-quite-straight angle covered, by the way) that will work well with my doodle quotes. The artists featured in Creative Lettering (who all, thankfully, seem to have blogs) are incredibly motivational. So motivational, I decided to pick up some unlined Moleskines the other day when I was at the book store getting a Father’s Day cookbook for my husband. My plan is to start practicing my lettering on a daily basis. Another one of those “we shall see” things.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

That’s a tough one to answer. For one thing, when it comes to writing, I tend to write what I like to read, and I’m an eclectic reader, so I’m kind of all over the map when it comes to my writing. But I find that magic does show up in a lot of my writing, even when I’m not writing fantasy. In the past, I’ve clamped down on that (there’s not much place for magic in a murder mystery, right?) but lately I’ve been thinking maybe I should just let the magic show up wherever it wants to.

Why do I write/create what I do?

Ah, an easy question! Because of the ideas I get! I’m not very disciplined about my writing (YET– I’m hoping to change that) but I get ideas all the time and most of them are the germs of stories. I like finding out where each one leads me, although I’m learning that it’s good to let the end point of each one come to me before I sit down to write. I seem to be very good at the whole “two stories in one” thing, and what I need to do is write down one story at a time – mainly, the story that wants to be told in that particular work.

As for the artsy stuff, I’m not very good at it, but it’s very good for my soul, and that’s a good enough reason for me.

How does your writing/creating process work?

I’m just starting to figure this out. Earlier this year, I tried to outline with index cards, and I did get an entire murder mystery down on the cards, but when I sat down to write, I was … bored! So for me, the best way to write is the way E.L. Doctorow described it:

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

“Mostly, the creative process is really, really fast. And when it happens, I have a pretty good idea of what something is. I am much more like somebody driving in the dark. My headlights will illuminate a little bit ahead of me, and I know where I’m going. I’m not just driving randomly. I know if I keep down this road, I will get to New York. But what happens on the way, I will find out.”

You see, when I don’t have a clear idea of how things end, I tend to write two or three stories in one. And then it’s a real mess to pull the real story out, and stash all the bits of the other stories away, for when it’s their turn to be told.

And now, please meet …

I’ve asked two fellow writers to play with me on this blog tour. They’ll both be posting their answers to these very same questions a week from today, on June 23:

Suey J of It’s All About Books. Most of you know Suey – she’s incredibly active in the book blogging community (she cohosts Bloggiesta). She’s also a writer, and the leader of a small, extremely motivating writing group that I’m very proud to be a member of. I’ve had the privilege of reading the YA novel she’s working on right now, and it is so good!

Janel Gradowski. Janel is a writer and an artist, and one of my best writer friends. Janel specializes in foodie fiction, and she’s motivated and inspired me over the past several years with her dedication and commitment to the writing craft, Next month sees the release of her culinary mystery, Pies & Peril.

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I'm a writer, avid reader, artist-at-heart & book indexer. I blog about writing, books, art, creativity, spirituality, & the power of the imagination. Oh, and I like to write stuff about life in general, too!

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." - Stephen King

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The purpose of being a serious writer is not to express oneself, and it is not to make something beautiful, though one might do those things anyway. Those things are beside the point. The purpose of being a serious writer is to keep people from despair. If you keep that in mind always, the wish to make something beautiful or smart looks slight and vain in comparison. If people read your work and, as a result, choose life, then you are doing your job.

“I didn’t write my books for posterity (not that posterity would have cared): I wrote them for myself. Which doesn’t mean I didn’t hunger for readers and fame. I never could have endured so much hard, solitary labor without the prospect of an audience. But this graveyard of dead books doesn’t unnerve me. It reminds me that I had a deeper motive, one that only the approach of old age and death has unlocked. I wrote to answer questions I had — the motive of all art, whatever its ostensible subject. There were things I urgently needed to know. ” James Atlas

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